1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for providing multimedia services. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method in which a service provider, which provides broadcasting-communication convergence services in a heterogeneous network environment, may deliver specific information about a service that the service provider itself provides.
2. Description of the Related Art
The evolution of the Internet into the broadband Internet has enabled not only the existing broadcasting that uses dedicated channels such as terrestrial channels, satellite channels and cables, but also the Internet broadcasting that provides scheduled multimedia services using the public Internet. As realistic services, broadcasting-communication convergence services have emerged that can provide a variety of services by organically combining the existing broadcasting with the Internet broadcasting.
Broadcast service providers (or broadcasters) can deliver content not only over the dedicated channels, but also over the Internet. Even a broadcast service provider has emerged that can deliver content only over the Internet without its dedicated broadcast channels. Therefore, regardless of whether a broadcaster uses both the dedicated channels and the Internet, or only uses the Internet, the broadcaster needs to deliver its program schedule (or organization) information to viewers along with program content, promoting their program content to the viewers, thus allowing the viewers to watch the programs according to the viewers' respective schedules. The broadcasters may provide a ‘Re-view’ service over the Internet, thereby allowing the viewers to watch the content later if the viewers did not watch during the content during its broadcast. In the existing broadcasting, this type of information is called an Electronic Program Guide (EPG). In the case of Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) system standard, this information is called Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) in the North American standard, and called Service Information (SI) in the European standard. Also, the information is called Program Specific Information (PSI) in the Moving Picture Experts Group-2 (MPEG-2) system standard which is widely used in the existing digital TV standard. In the North American standard, PSI and PSIP are defined to be transmitted together, but viewers may select programs only with the PSIP. In the European standard, PSI and SI are transmitted together, and the program selection is possible only with the PSI, but a verity of guide information about programs is additionally provided using SI. In this specification, this kind of information will be referred to as ‘Service Specific Information (SSI)’.
In contrast to the existing broadcasting that uses the dedicated channels, the Internet broadcasting is globally provided, so viewers may access the Internet broadcasting over the Internet anywhere in the world as long as the viewers have a receiver capable of receiving the Internet broadcasting, thereby overcoming the limitations of the regional property of the existing broadcasting. Therefore, in order to overcome the limitations of the regional property of the existing broadcasting standards, which are roughly classified into the North American standard, the European standard, and the Japanese standard, the Internet broadcasting should be provided by a single standard unique in the world to prevent the unnecessary increase in complexity of the receivers. In this regard, SSI also requires a single standard.
The future broadcasting-communication convergence system is expected to be restructured based on the Internet. In other words, even guide information not only about the program content over the existing broadcast channels but also about the program content over the Internet will be delivered in SSI in the machine-readable form in which the receivers may read the program content. Then, the receivers may acquire the SSI over broadcast channels or the Internet, utilize it in controlling broadcast reception, and if necessary, show it in the form in which the viewers can read the SSI. Of course, the Internet broadcasters, which use no dedicated broadcast channels, may deliver the SSI over the Internet.
Therefore, a need exists for an apparatus and method for providing a format by which a service provider, which provides broadcasting-communication convergence services in a heterogeneous network environment including the Internet, may deliver specific information about a service that the service provider itself provides.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present invention.